The present invention relates in general to telecommunications networks and more particularly to a telecommunications switch for providing telephony traffic integrated with video information services.
Over the past decade, telephone companies have been confronted with increasing competition for their core businesses. Revenues from telephone services are either flat or in a declining state. In order to improve profit margins, telephone companies have dramatically reduced staff levels and diversified their businesses to reduce their reliance on telephone service profits. Telephone companies desire to expand revenue opportunities through the offering of new services. The most significant new service with respect to the residential customer is the delivery of video services such: as analog multicast, digital multicast, and switched digital capabilities. Telephone companies look to gain a share of the cable television and video cassette rental revenue streams and to grow the total available market through successful marketing and distribution of new on-demand video services. Therefore, it is desirable that video services can be provided by telephone companies along with telephony services that are currently offered.
From the foregoing, it may be appreciated that a need has arisen for a telecommunications switch that can provide both telephony traffic and video information. In accordance with the present invention, a telecommunications switch for providing telephony traffic integrated with video information services is provided that substantially eliminates or reduces disadvantages and problems associated with conventional telecommunications switches.
According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided a telecommunications switch that includes a common control section for processing telephony traffic received from a telephony network. The telecommunications switch also includes a broadband fiber bank section that receives video information carried in asynchronous transfer mode cells from a video information provider. The common control section provides telephony traffic to the broadband fiber bank section. The broadband fiber bank section places the telephony traffic into asynchronous transfer mode cells and multiplexes telephony asynchronous transfer mode cells with video asynchronous,transfer mode cells for transport to an optical network unit.
The present invention provides various technical advantages over convention telecommunications switches. For example, one technical advantage is to integrate telephony traffic and video information. Another technical advantage is to place telephony traffic into asynchronous transfer mode cells for multiplexing with video asynchronous transfer mode cells. Yet another technical advantage is to integrate video services into a conventional telecommunications switch. Other technical advantages are readily apparent to one skilled in the art from the following figures, description and claims.